MARGARET MEAD

In 1925, she went on "her first field trip, to undertake a 'study in heredity and environment based on an investigation of the phenomenon of adolescence among primitive and civilized peoples.' Her task, as she described it, would 'involve working almost entirely with women, and should therefore add appreciably to our ethnological information on the subject of primitive women.'" (Howard 1995 1)

When she returned to New York after some five and a half months, she accepted a job as assistant curator at the American Museum of Natural History. She had an association with that Museum until her death in 1978. But, it was the publication of her work in Samoa in 1928, entitled Coming of Age in Samoa, which first brought her world-wide attention. Her theory was that if Samoan adolescence could get through puberty without pain or clumsiness, so could Americans and Europeans." (Howard 1995 2 In 1930, she wrote Growing Up in New Guinea (she wrote thirty-two books in all) Another of her landmark anthropological books was Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935).

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mmediately, the story was picked up by newspapers, magazines and television. Freeman, then an emeritus professor at the Australian National university, came to the U.S. to appear on talk shows before the book was available. (Shankman 49) Of course, Freeman had an advantage. He was talking on TV and radio and giving interviews to the print media, while Margaret Mead was dead. Therefore, she could not respond. However, in the pages of Skeptic Magazine (2001) Shankman continues to try to determine why "intelligent people" continue to say bad things about Margaret Mead. He cites noted intellectuals like Ernst Mayr, Niko Tinbergen and Richard Dawkins "as well as science writers like Martin Gardner, Robert Wright, and John Pfeiffer, and academics in the humanities like Bruce Mazlish and Mary Lefkowitz." (Shankman 50) In part these scientists (so claims Shankman) were hoodwinked by the larger scope about which Freeman wrote, including his assertion that he claimed "to speak the truth on behalf of Samoans, representing his interpretation pf Samoan sexual conduct as authentic, the result of decades of careful thought and years of field work, while he portrays Mead as a young, nanve anthropologist who did only limited fieldwork and wa
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1689
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)